This was sent to me by a couple friends one late night. I won't get into the details of the story or anything, just suffice it to say it was pretty funny. The images I got are right outta the big place though.

There's no details known on whether this will be made or not, and I'm sure there's plenty of cardboard mock-ups of many toys that never got made. This may just be one, however I have it on pretty good authority that Hasbro has passed this playset around on more than one occassion at meetings. I have that from another source. That one corroborated this image/story for me by the way.

I kind of figured CHEWIE wouldn't, as honestly it's not the route I'd go with either Jayson... Personally I'm more a modular design fan since it's more open to stuffing/fitting into shelves, and more open to buying multiple smaller playsets. I've mocked up a couple of those on my own over the years, and the "system" I came up with is pretty flawless. But it's flawless to someone looking for "details" though, not a kid wanting to play with it.

Others have done the modular design I've seen, and it looks more like something you'd build to display your figures only, not really "play" with.

I applaud Hasbro's effort to make a cool/interesting looking Death Star like this though, that harkens to the Palitoy Death Star from years back. Round, trying to capture the Death Star's shape somewhat, and with lots of little rooms adjoining one another... Chasms and things for play value, consoles, doors...

One has to remember Hasbro's always said that playsets have to focus on the kids, not the collector, and kids sort of connect immediately with the Death Star's shape I think. Hasbro designers, I imagine anyway, want to capture that connection by basically making it the right shape, only scaled down.

It's also reminiscent of Galoob Micro Machine playsets... Capturing the item's overall shape, but a small environment inside.

It's a mock-up, so it's that architectural board stuff... If it were a toy, I have no clue what it would be. At that size and shape, plastic may not be easy to engineer it right, or make it cost-effective. Who knows? It could be either I suppose, once produced.

The design guys at Hasbro will mock up with whatever materials work. Figures are sculpted with wax. Foamcore gets used. Or cardboard.

With something like the Death Star a cardboard mockup makes sense. But then a lot will depend on whether or not a prototype made from production grade plastic will work. There's a lot of void space with the Death Star, and structural stability is going to be a major concern. Especially if they try to incorporate the megalaser or some kind of outer skin.

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Man, I've got to say I am NOT a fan of the all-in-one playset. At least NOT for the Death Star.

I've posted ad naseum here and other sites about how to do a modular Death Star playset. A couple of large rooms (Hangar, Throne Room), some medium sized (Conference, Trash Compactor, Bridge and Sheild Generator trenches, Prison area-includes receiving area and long hallway with a couple of modular prison cells you can attach, most notably for Leia), and some small rooms (Red Control Room, various sized hallways-to connect these all together), add an elevator because these sets can not only be connected horizontally, but stacked and connected vertically.

If Hasbro announced this as an on going series, with each set including parts to build another set then you've got a great playset program that people can look forward to, as well as build how they want to AND the bonus of another playset at the end if you get at least one of each set.

For some of us, this would be a dream as we would want to build a LARGE set with many interconnecting hallways, stacked high, etc.

Each playset is priced according to it's size. Large $40, Medium $30, small $20 (in the case of the hallways only $10-15 since there isn't much there). By the time you're done building just the base Death Star set with all of the rooms (and not even any hallways) you'd spend close to $200. It's money over the long haul for Hasbro, more affordable in chunks to we the consumers and by being modular gives US the opportunity to imagine the playset however WE want to, instead of a forced all-in-one that could never satisfy all of our desires for such a grand location.

I won't buy a set such as the one the pic shows. It's not what I envision, so I'll vote with my dollars and voice on this and say NAY!

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I'm just a humble collector trying to make his way through the universe...of toy aisles."We are strong. We are resilient. We are American." - President Barack Obama, State of the Union Address 2010

I think I'd have to see one in person, and what all it featured/had detail-wise inside, before I'd commit to saying I would or would not buy it... Speaking from a purely customizing-frenzy standpoint, I could dig it if it wasn't too expensive and had useable stuff... How likely is that though? Not very I'd imagine.

I don't like the design of the large sphere myself either, but as hasbro's said, playsets are for kids primarily and I stand by the need to capture the shape I think. Kids need that recognizeable look. I think the BMF is more playset than "vehicle", and look what it is? A truncated Millenium Falcon, not individual rooms/interior sets separate of any overall "shape" the ship holds.

I think as a toy, just looking at the mockup, it'd be outstanding... Just like the BMF, the Queen's Starship, or the Juggernaught/TurboTardTank... Good toy, but perhaps a less than appealing collectable.

I, too, would rather see something modular like has been stated above, since that would allow you to piece together your own Death Star, as well as let Hasbro reuse some of the basic room walls/floors and just have different consoles/tables/throne/turbo lasers etc in each seperate set.

But I'd still be all over something like this in a heartbeat! Presuming the doors are 4" high, maybe someone could figure out what the diameter of this thing really is? 3' tall? Well, my BMF won't fit in the docking bay, but if they get the lower level right, you could park it right beside the doors Vader & Ben dueled in and Luke & Leia ran out to the ship from. That'd still be pretty cool!